


Let It All Go

by X23Wolverine



Series: What Comes After [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Depression, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:39:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9820898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/X23Wolverine/pseuds/X23Wolverine
Summary: Tony is struggling to deal with the outcome of the Civil War.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [讓一切隨風逝去（translation of 'Let It All Go'）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10066127) by [AshuraXuan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshuraXuan/pseuds/AshuraXuan)



The chair seemed to swallow him whole as he slowly eased his way into it. His body protested the movement - every inch bruised in some way - and Tony let out a low groan as he settled.  
The fight may have already ended, but for him it was still raging in his mind. A play-by-play ran on repeat, a never-ending cycle of the mistakes that everyone made, but mostly of his own.  
He had thought that a few too many drinks would help to at least dull the images but so far no luck. He was on his fifth…sixth…seventh? glass of scotch - they all melded together on nights like these - and he was almost ready for the next.  
What he really wanted was to go down to the shop and find something to distract himself - he knew that the suit had a few dents left to hash out, plus he needed to finish the new designs - but even that didn’t work in a way of distraction. His eyes glazed over as he kept an unyielding focus on the table in front of him.  
It was that damn letter. The letter that Steve had the fucking balls to send after everything that he had done.  
Tony leaned forward, his body perched at the edge of the chair’s cushion, his eyes drifting between the two objects on the table. The small, horribly archaic cell phone seemed to have its own substance, staring him down and driving the hammer of guilt deeper into his gut.  
He snorted at that train of thought - it could have easily just been the liquor killing his liver, with his luck. He briefly wondered if he was okay with that - it would prove his father right after all of these years…  
Tony quickly drew his mind back from anything related to his family. That was something that required more liquor before it could be breached.  
He hesitantly reached for the letter, his hand unsteady and his grip weak. The page felt rough with its surface covered in multiple wrinkles and creases, some edges sporting tears from his weakest moments.  
His eyes scanned over the lettering that he had memorized by now, following the curves and slanted lines of Steve’s writing. There were moments when the letter drove Tony into an uncontrollable rage, while others lead him to days of barely any food and endless wandering of the seemingly empty compound. But no matter how many mood swings and internal debates he conducted, Tony could not make himself sway one way or another.  
A part of him wanted to burn the damn thing and never think of it again. The other wanted to pick up that retched phone and call him, wanted to hear his voice one last time.  
He knew this wasn’t healthy for him. He’d seen the looks that everyone had thrown at him: Rhodey’s concerned eyes as he struggled to place one foot in front of the other during therapy, Happy’s as he attempted to coerce his boss into eating for the first time in days, even the one time Pepper video-called in an attempt to spur his signing process on work for SI. He could feel himself deteriorating as each day passed. He chose liquid meals in the form of brandy or scotch more often than anything solid. He wasn’t purposely starving himself; his throat, stomach, and mind just did not want to work together to force the food down.  
Tony released a shaky sigh as his other hand reached out almost unconsciously for the phone. He glanced between the two items a few times before opening the phone, his thumb already pressed down on the first number that he had memorized what seemed like ages ago. Before long the entire number was entered, and fate seemed to take over as his thumb pressed ‘send’. The phone rang. And rang. And rang. Frustrated, but mostly disgusted with himself, Tony ripped the phone away from his ear, his thumb hovering over the ‘end call’ button. Right before he pressed down, he could hear the voicemail begin.

_Hello, this is Steve. Sorry I couldn’t answer, but I promise that I will get back to you as soon as possible._

Tony let out a strangled laugh, tears beginning to gather in the corners of his eyes.

“You fucking bastard. Don’t even answer after sending me the goddamned phone.”

Tony paused, breath shaky, as he attempted to wrangle together the anger he had been drowning in these past weeks.

“I should fucking hate you, you know? I should want to strangle you. I think I did at one point, but I can’t remember exactly when that was. Maybe in that room when I offered you those pens? I opened myself up to you, you know. Told you all of those fucking feelings to try and show you that I was on your side. That we should have been on the same side. All I wanted was to be by your side.”

Tony scrubbed angrily at the tears that were steadily falling down his cheeks and gritted his teeth to stop the sobs that wanted to escape.

“Goddamnit, Steve. I showed up at that stupid compound ready to hear you guys out. By then I knew what Ross was trying to do. I knew how wrong it was. But I was just trying to avoid a fucking tsunami, to try and mold it into a wave that we could all survive. Before the hood was pulled over all of our fucking eyes. But then he showed that fucking video. Do you realize what that did to me, Steve? To see your friend murder my parents? To crush my mom? She was…she…,”

A sob broke loose.

“I don’t remember going after you guys at first. It wasn’t even that video that sent me into that rage. You realize that, Steve? It wasn’t until you admitted to knowing all of this fucking time. You knew the whole damn time and you _kept it from me!_ I worshipped you as a kid. I looked to you in times when I didn’t know what to fucking do. There was this one night. Dad was drunk. He was pissed about something. Mom tried to calm him down, and the next thing I knew he was throwing her across the room. I remember the noise she made as she hit the wall, her head hitting hard against the corner of a shelf. I was six, thin as a rail, and fucking stupid. I thought I could take him on, protect mom and teach dad his place. I thought I could stand up to him like Captain America did to the Nazis. Punch him right in the face. Ended up in the hospital for the first time that night. My parents told the doctors I fell down the stairs while playing. Three broken ribs, left leg snapped, couple of fingers fractured. Learned after that to keep my mouth shut and just work on whatever would make them both happy.”

Tony paused and rubbed his eyes forcefully.

“I didn’t even try to fight back when you raised that shield. I wanted you to do it. Sometimes I still want you to do it. I have dreams where I find where you are and go alone to pick a fight just so that this can all end. Everyone would be better off without me here. I’m not an idiot. I know that I’m the reason the Avengers fell apart. I’m the reason Clint and Scott aren’t with their families, that Wanda is a fugitive. God, Wanda. She’s just a kid. She’s a fucking _kid_ , Steve. So is Peter. And I dragged them both into this. I fucking lost Rhodey his _legs_ , Cap. My Rhodey can’t walk again, not without some kind of help. And Natasha..and Pepper can’t even look me in the eyes anymore…and Sam..and Bucky…and…and…,”

Tony’s breath sped up as the walls seemed to close in around him. He shrunk down into the chair, both hands tight around the phone pressed to his ear, his entire body wracked with a mixture of sobs and emotion. He couldn’t breathe. The phantom weight of the reactor pressed down on his lungs, dug into his chest and pressed down. A low whine warped around the room before Tony realized that the sound was coming from him. It seemed forever before he realized that there was another sound close to him, calling his name.

_“Tony, Tony! Can you hear me? Tony, you need to snap out of this. Breathe in, breathe out. Nice and slow. C’mon, Tony. Don’t do this to me. You can do it. Tony, I need you to breathe with me, nice and slow. Ready? In, out. In, out. In, out.”_

Unconsciously Tony’s breathing slowed down to match the voice. It took a few minutes before he realized where the voice was coming from.

“St-Steve?”

_“…Yeah, Tony, it’s me.”_

“What the fuck? Were you listening to everything?”

_“Yes, Tony. I picked up the phone when I heard your voice through the answering machine. I didn’t want to interrupt.”_

“That’s…that’s fucked up, Rogers. I didn’t actually want you to hear that shit. Not yet. Not like that.”

_“I’m sorry, Tony. I…I don’t know what to say.”_

Tony felt numb. He had imagined a conversation playing between them for weeks, but now that he was faced with the real thing he didn’t know what to do. What to say. What to feel. Finally he gripped the phone tightly in his hand, his mind made up.

“I can’t do this right now, Cap.”

_“Tony, you can’t run away from what just happened - “_

Tony barked out a laugh before Steve could continue and ran his hand roughly through his hair.

“That’s real fucking rich, coming from you.”

_“Tony - “_

“No, you listen to me right now. I am not doing this tonight. I’m drunk, and tired, and starving, and my nerves are shot. I just let out all of this shit because I thought it was a fucking voicemail, Rogers. One that I could delete when I was done and either hang up or leave one telling you to fuck off. So I’m going to hang up right now.”

_“Tony, please don’t go.”_

“What would you want to talk about? We talked plenty back in Siberia. Plenty was definitely said in Germany. I…I can’t right now. Please just…don’t make this harder than it needs to be. I need to convince myself…,”

Tony hesitated, his eyes wide as he realized what he was just about to confess.

_“What, Tony? What are you not telling me?”_

“Goodbye, Steve. Don’t wait up.”

_“Tony?! Tony!”_

Tony’s thumb ended the call. He closed the phone and dragged it roughly along his jaw. A jagged edge left a small cut on the corner of his mouth. He reached up and touched it for a moment. Tony pulled his hand away to see a small amount of blood on the tip of his finger. An unexpected laugh burst loose, and before he knew it they were coming with no sign of relief. Sobs intersected with the laughs, and before he knew it Tony was a huddled mess on the floor with his back pressed almost painfully against the chair behind him. He wrapped his arms tightly around his legs as he tried to ground himself. It took him a while to realize that he had been muttering a phrase in-between the hysterical mixture of laughs and tears, filling his ears with truth.

“I love you…I love you…I love you…”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey you guys! Long time, I know. I've had this one in the works for a while, but it wasn't until tonight while I'm sick with the flu that I was able to find inspiration to finish it.
> 
> Steve, being the old-fashioned man he is, has a "house phone". That's what he's talking about when he mentions that he heard Tony over the answering machine and decided to pick up. That's what those phones were capable of when I was a kid. They still are, but not too many people have home phones anymore.


End file.
